HELSINKI: The climate change debate should be reframed in economic and security terms ahead of a year-end UN summit in Mexico seeking a binding climate deal, the president of the Maldives said Wednesday.
A price tag needs to be put on "the extent to which we destroy the atmosphere, the extent to which we pollute the atmosphere," President Mohamed Nasheed said at a climate change seminar in Helsinki.
Climate change was not about "hugging trees", he said, insisting that beyond the environmental aspects it was central to future security policies, sustainable economics and human rights.
"If we can have a discourse on the feasibility of renewable energy ... I think that would make such a substantial impact on the policy," he said, adding that switching to non-fossil-fuel-based energy sources like wind and solar power made "good economic sense.
His own, low-lying country is one of the most vulnerable to the rising sea levels anticipated as a result of global warming, and in a bid to lead by example the Maldives has pledged to become carbon neutral by 2020.
A climate change summit in Copenhagen last December failed to yield a hoped-for treaty on tackling the carbon emissions blamed for disrupting the climate system, and sparked a fierce international row about who was to blame.
Nasheed said the time for "pointing fingers" was over, stressing that both developing and developed countries needed to act together to regain the momentum lost in the climate change debate since Copenhagen.
"Before we go to Mexico, there has to be more trust built between developing and developed countries," he said, adding the climate change discussion had "no other motive than the survival of our species."
There was "no argument" to support the demands of some developing countries for their emissions not to be limited, he said, adding that reducing emissions was economically responsible and would not stop development.
"We have planetary boundaries, and we cannot go beyond that. We have to find alternative sources of energy," he insisted.
The so-called Copenhagen Accord sets a goal of limiting warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) but does not detail when or how this goal should be achieved, nor does it commit its signatories to binding pledges.
The next UN summit aimed at hashing out a binding deal will be held in the beach resort of Cancun, Mexico, from November 29 to December 10.
